Get out of debt

Roy Keane’s supposed philosophy in relation to football at least was neatly summarised in the catchy phrase: ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. People talk these days about what they call ‘unsustainable debt’ usually referring to the national debt of countries such as Ireland or Greece but sometimes in the context of personal debt. Continue reading

Debt after Christmas

Even if we didn’t overspend at Christmas, it somehow feels as if we did. Spending just seems to expand so as to consume all available cash and then some. It doesn’t seem to matter if we are paid weekly or monthly, Christmas just seems to be like a good vacuum cleaner, sucking up every spare penny. Continue reading

Get debt help

Some years ago a famous advertisement proclaimed that ‘It’s good to talk’. When it comes to resolving debt problems the first option should always be to talk about it. Even when the problems seem intractable, you should at least try to talk to your lenders. It is particularly important that you seek debt help when you begin to miss payments or when you have made late payments or when you have begun to pay your creditors selectively over other creditors, say if certain creditors are putting you under pressure. This behaviour is unfair on the creditors who are treating you better i.e. not putting you under pressure nor sending debt collectors to your door, nor taking legal action against you. Continue reading

Help with Debt Problems

When things go wrong in life, one of the hardest things to do is to accept and acknowledge that it’s our own fault and that we are to blame. OK, sometimes it is somebody else’s fault. i.e. If a relationship breaks down, the other person may have been the biggest factor in the event. If you lose your job, it may be that your employer really was losing money or it may be that your function no longer existed in the organisation or that a restructuring was really necessary. If you fail your exams, it may be that the paper was unfair and that the questions weren’t really within the boundaries of the syllabus. And when personal debt problems emerge, it’s only natural that our first inclination is to assign blame to circumstances outside of our control and to blame any convenient third party for our predicament. Continue reading

Why creditors might reject your IVA

Incorrect financial information

Creditors take it for granted that you are truthful in your IVA Proposal about your current financial circumstances and how they arose. They expect you to be open, frank and honest and to disclose all relevant facts about your income, expenses, assets and liabilities. If a creditor is aware that you are hiding some important fact about your insolvency they then they will be dubious about the IVA proposal as a whole and be likely to reject it. Continue reading

Using credit before an IVA

If you suspect that you may be insolvent* (unable to pay your debts), you might be thinking about doing an IVA or  going bankrupt. Certainly if you have been defaulting on repayments of unsecured loans and if you have only been able to make minimum payments on your credit cards or store cards, there is a good chance that you are indeed insolvent.

*One definition of insolvency is the ‘inability to repay your debts as and when they fall due’. Continue reading

Debt Management to IVA

There are a huge number of people in Debt Management Plans in the UK. Many of them have varied circumstances as to why they are in Debt Management over other solutions. Some may be solvent but to pay off their debts in full in accordance with the terms on which they borrowed the money in the first place they would have to dispose of some of their assets such as a house, and many of them are not prepared to do this. Continue reading

Improving your credit rating

Who Keeps Credit Scores?

In the UK there are three main Credit Reference Agencies which get their information from lenders with the permission of the borrowers who, when they sign up to a loan agreement, consent to this type of information being disclosed. Of course, if consent is withheld, the lender may not pass on details of the borrower’s agreement. Continue reading